EARTHblog » Bill Walker

LONDON -- For weeks, Anglo American PLC have been running ads in the Guardian, the Economist and at Heathrow Airport, touting the benefits their mines bring to communities. Alaska Natives from Bristol Bay, where Anglo American proposes to dig the largest open-pit mine in North America, have today replied to this greenwashing by taking out a full-page ad in CityAM with a blunt message to the company.

LONDON, Nov. 2 Fifty of the world s leading jewellers, with more than $5.75 billion in annual sales, say they won t use gold from Anglo American PLC s proposed Pebble Mine, which threatens the world s most important fishing grounds for wild sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

At a news conference today in Bond Street, heart of London's luxury jewelry trade, Nunamta Aulukestai (Caretakers of our Land), an association of nine Alaska Native village corporations in Bristol Bay, and Earthworks announced the latest jewelers to pledge not to use gold from Pebble Mine. The latest signatories include Fraser Hart, a leading UK independent jewellery retailer; Boucheron, a supplier of jewels to the British royal family; and Ingle & Rhode, a custom jeweler specializing in ethically sourced materials. They join Tiffany & Co, Goldsmiths, Mappin and Webb, Beaverbrooks and other leading retailers and designers representing thousands of stores in the UK and worldwide opposed to the project.

In some areas, mining of precious metals presents too great a risk to communities and the environment. Bristol Bay is such an area, said Noel Coyle, CEO of Fraser Hart. We support protection of Bristol Bay from large-scale mining, and will not source gold that comes at the expense of the communities and salmon fisheries of Bristol Bay.